Audacity Forum

Hello!

Last spring I started using Audacity on my PowerBook G4 with a Logitech AK5370 desktop mic, and I had no problems. Recently I started trying to record again after a long hiatus, but when I hit the record button I get the message: Error while opening sound device. Please check the device input settings and the project sample rate. I've checked and rechecked all of those, but the same message still comes up. My Mac sound setting panel tells me that the computer is receiving the sound through this mic. Twice Audacity has even crashed upon hitting the record button. What could the problem be?

I'm not a computer-savvy guy(hence the Mac), so any help at all would be greatly appreciated!

Rauchman

<<<What could the problem be?>>>

Almost certainly hardware problems. Remove and replug the microphone USB connection several times. Change to the other USB. It's supposed to be on USB2.

Koz

Koz,

Thank you for the prompt reply, but I've tried both USB ports, and the results are the same. Do you think I should try uninstalling Audacity and trying again from scratch?

Rauchman

Just to confirm, you opened up the Mac Sound Panel and you can see the bouncing lights when you talk, right?

What happens when you try to record something from the Mac internal microphone? Switch the sound panel to Mac Internal and see if Audacity can record that. Make sure that Audacity input switch and the Mac panel match.

Select your hard drive and APPLE-I (INFO) the drive. If you run out of room to put the captured work, Audacity will crash.
For either audio or video production, the drive should have at least 10% free space on it.

Koz

I tried the internal mic as well with both the Mac and Aud set the same, but now it just crashes every time before I even have a chance to start recording sound. And again the lights are lights are bouncing in the Mac settings panel. My hard drive is 95% empty so I don't think lack of capacity could be a problem. Do you think that uninstalling Aud and trying again from a new download could help?

Rauchman

I'm beginning to think the best course of action on these catastrophic failure problems, is to download version 1.3.x and use that. There have been a number of crash stories like yours and nothing I've been able to do so far has helped except stop using 1.2.x. It's like there's nothing wrong, but it doesn't work.

One more thing. Did you disconnect the Logitech microphone (and maybe restart the machine) when you switched to the internal mic?

Koz